Naan Pizza (or Non-Pizza?)

One of the conveniences of my old urban/suburban life that I miss out here is pizza delivery. I didn't order pizza all that often when I lived in the city, but knowing that I had the option was reassuring, somehow. How else can you have tiny packets of stale parmesan cheese and chili pepper flakes brought right to your doorstep?

Most days, the landscape of Blanca Flats doesn't look desolate at all to me. The immense wealth of all this sky and unoccupied land reminds me that if nothing else, vision and thought and air don't cost anything. However, the neighborhood looks a bit barren on Fridays and Saturdays at around twilight, when I realize that I'll probably never see a battered Ford Pinto with a Pizza Hut sign on top pull up to my door.



We don't get U.S. mail delivery out here in Blanca Flats, so hand-delivered pizza with green peppers, black olives, mushrooms, and all my other favorite tidbits isn't likely to be forthcoming any time soon. The closest place to get pizza is Fort Garland, about 10 miles to the East. Great pizza, but they don't deliver.

Since we moved here, E. has become a highly resourceful cook. He created a version of pizza using Indian flatbread as a crust. Believe it or not (I still don't), the WalMart in Alamosa sells pretty good naan. And as it turns out, the right kind of naan -- not too flabby or spongy -- makes an excellent crust for an individual pizza.

The foundation of naan pizza is fresh tomatoes. You can use a marinara sauce from a jar, but honestly, it just doesn't have the same flavor as live tomatoes.


Here are the cooked tomatoes before they meet their fate in the food processor:


E. spreads his homemade tomato sauce on a piece of naan, then adds freshly grated mozzarella cheese, black olives, zucchini, green peppers, sausage, onions and whatever other toppings we have in the refrigerator. He bakes it in our propane-powered oven at around 375 degrees for about 15 or 20 minutes.

The result is naan-pizza, a delicious alternative for hermits who don't have pizza delivery.

We were actually talking about cooking tumbleweeds yesterday. E. says he thinks people used to eat them during the Great Depression. I'm thinking that they might not be bad if you boiled them for a long, long time.

Next week's special: Tumbleweed Quesadillas from the Lonely Alien Cafe.